Activists show their support for the proposed rent cap during the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors meeting at Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration in Los Angeles on Tuesday, September 11, 2018. (Photo by Nick Agro, Contributing Photographer)

Terra Graziani of the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project passes out signs outside of Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration before a meeting of the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors, who are proposing a six-month rent cap in unincorporated Los Angeles on Tuesday, September 11, 2018. (Photo by Nick Agro, Contributing Photographer)

Emari Basto shows her support for the proposed rent cap during the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors meeting at Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration in Los Angeles on Tuesday, September 11, 2018. (Photo by Nick Agro, Contributing Photographer)

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Activists show their support for the proposed rent cap during the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors meeting at Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration in Los Angeles on Tuesday, September 11, 2018. (Photo by Nick Agro, Contributing Photographer)

Joannie Lin and Jim Lee stand outside of Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration before a meeting of the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors, who voted to enact a six-month rent cap in unincorporated Los Angeles on Tuesday, September 11, 2018. (Photo by Nick Agro, Contributing Photographer)

Members of the Los Angeles Center for Community Law and Action lead a march through downtown Los Angeles in support of a county motion to enact a 3 percent rent cap for six months on some 50,000 apartments in unincorporated parts of the county. (Photo by Sarah Favot)

Jose Nuñez speaks at a rally Tuesday, Sept. 11, in support of a temporary rent cap for older apartments in unincorporated Los Angeles County. A resident of the Florence-Firestone area for 20 years, Nuñez said he and 15 neighbors received eviction notices after complaining about the conditions at their 25-unit building. “We’ve been asking the owner for many years to address the problems of cockroaches, rats and mold,” Nuñez later told Supervisors. “In response, we received eviction notices.” (Photo by Sarah Favot)

Ariana Sandoval of East L.A. attended a rent control rally and march with her 2-year-old daughter. She is on a month-to-month lease and worries that her landlord will increase her rent. (Photo by Sarah Favot)

Activists wait in line outside of Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration before a meeting of the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors, who voted to enact a six-month rent cap in unincorporated Los Angeles on Tuesday, September 11, 2018. (Photo by Nick Agro, Contributing Photographer)

Activists wait in line outside of Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration before a meeting of the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors, who voted to enact a six-month rent cap in unincorporated Los Angeles on Tuesday, September 11, 2018. (Photo by Nick Agro, Contributing Photographer)

Activists show their support for the proposed rent cap during the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors meeting at Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration in Los Angeles on Tuesday, September 11, 2018. (Photo by Nick Agro, Contributing Photographer)

Rent hikes for some 50,000 older apartments in unincorporated Los Angeles County will be capped at 3 percent for six months, giving county leaders time to evaluate a panel’s recommendation that the county enact rent control permanently.

Following two hours of comments from more than 100 speakers, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 on Tuesday, Sept. 11, to approve a temporary rent cap aimed at helping struggling tenants keep their homes in one of the nation’s most expensive housing markets.

County staff now has two months to draft the final language of the proposed ordinance, which also will include “just cause eviction” provisions, limiting when landlords can oust tenants in good standing. Rents in effect as of Tuesday will serve as the baseline for future hikes.

“A bright light is shining on our board today. And part of it has to do with the relief (we’re providing renters),” Supervisor Hilda Solis said at the start of the hearing in downtown Los Angeles. “We know that we’re not going to be able to build enough houses in the immediate future. … We need more remedies. We need more tools in our toolbox. “

The action comes a week after the board gave final approval to a similar rent cap for mobile homes. And it follows recommendations from a 10-member citizen “working group” last month that the county adopt permanent rent control.

Supervisor Kathryn Barger cast the sole vote against the measure, saying she could support such a motion only if it was amended to guarantee landlords the ability raise rents on vacant units and other safeguards.

“Tenant protections can have the effect of backfiring,” Barger said before the vote. “I have already heard anecdotally that investors and developers have walked away from multifamily housing projects in Altadena pending the county’s actions on tenant protections … And we have all heard stories of how rent control has assisted the very population we are not trying to assist: High-wage earners who got into a rent-controlled unit and never leaving again, artificially lowering the vacancy rate.”

Chanting “Fight, fight, housing is a human right,” about 30 rent control supporters marched through downtown Tuesday morning, then were joined by about 70 more for a rally on the steps of the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration.

“Landlords don’t need to gouge tenants to make a return on their investment,” rent control supporter Beverly Roberts, owner of a South Los Angeles rental home, told the crowd.

Renter Pauline Torres, 72, said she’s going to have to vacate her apartment in unincorporated East Los Angeles because her building’s new owner raised her rent by $350 a month.

“We don’t want to be homeless,” she said.

Under the state’s Costa-Hawkins Act, rent control is limited to apartments, duplexes and triplexes built before 1995. County staff estimated unincorporated areas of the county have about 50,000 units — about 4 percent of all apartments countywide — eligible for rent control under Costa-Hawkins.

Currently, just six Southern California cities — including Los Angeles, Santa Monica and West Hollywood — have rent-controlled apartments.

Board Chairwoman Sheila Kuehl said it’s too soon to say whether rent control would be expanded to houses, condos or newer apartments if California voters approve Proposition 10, a measure to repeal Costa-Hawkins on the Nov. 6 ballot.

Representatives of the Los Angeles Coalition for Responsible Housing Solutions, whose members include landlords, Realtors and business associations, opposed the rent cap, saying rents aren’t going up this year as fast as they were over previous years.

“There’s no reason for them to support this,” Beverly Kenworthy, vice president of the California Apartment Association, said in an interview before the meeting. “Rents are not going to go down until we increase our supply. … Rent control does not address that.”

Throughout the meeting, landlords and others opposing the rent cap conceded that housing is unaffordable and action is needed to help renters.

The coalition said it supports such tenant protections as relocation funds when apartments are sold, tenant-landlord mediation and increased code enforcement inspections. But not rent control.

Landlord after landlord came forward repeating the same phrase: “Rent control does not work.”

“Existing research and existing economic data out there says it’s harmful,” said David Kissinger, government affairs director for the South Bay Association of Realtors, who attended the working group’s meetings. Kissinger took issue with Kuehl’s recent statement calling such assertions “mythology.”

“This is not mythology. This is math and science,” Kissinger said. Tuesday’s vote, he said, amounts “de facto rent control” that likely will remain in effect “for the foreseeable future.”

Several landlords said rent control will spell the downfall of mom and pop landlords, who sometimes mortgage their homes to invest and use their rental income to pay for retirement.

Mom and pop landlords are “being clubbed like baby seals with this rent freeze,” said Janet Gagnon of the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles. “Make no mistake. This rent freeze is a lethal injection to all mom and pop landlords. You will see for sale signs popping up all over when this measure passes.”

Kuehl agreed that mom and pop apartment owners “are going the way of mom and pop farmers.” Not because of rent control, she said, but because rentals are being bought up by private equity firms like Blackstone.

Numerous renters and tenants right’s activists came forward with stories of families unable to make ends meet because of rising rents. Susan Hunter of the Los Angeles Tenants Union described one tenant as so distraught “she was going to hang herself.”

Speaking through an interpreter, Manuel Galarza’s voice cracked as he told supervisors of getting a $350 a month rent hike.

“It’s not that I don’t want to pay,” said Galarza, 73. “It’s just that what I get from the government is not sufficient.”

For more than a decade, Jeff Collins has followed housing and real estate, covering market booms and busts and all aspects of the real estate industry. He has been tracking rents and home prices, and has explored solutions to critical problems such as Southern California’s housing shortage and affordability crisis. Before joining the Orange County Register in 1990, he covered a wide range of topics for daily newspapers in Kansas, El Paso and Dallas. A Southern California native, he studied at UC Santa Barbara and UC Irvine. He later earned a master’s degree from the USC School of Journalism.